Puff Pastry Dough

1. 1

   Place the butter in the freezer 15 minutes before making the recipe.

2. 2

   In a large bowl, place the flour, sugar, and salt. Mix to combine.

3. 3

   Use a cheese grater to grate the cold butter over the flour mixture. (Find the food processor method below on the notes)

4. 4

   Use a fork or a spatula to combine the butter with the flour.

5. 5

   Add 7 tablespoons of ice water. Stir with a spatula to bring it together. If there’s too much dry flour still in the mixture, add another tablespoon of water. The mixture will still look very crumbly.

6. 6

   Transfer the mixture to the counter. Pat it down, and use a bench scraper to cut in half, then take one half and place on top of the other. There will be many crumbs falling off, and that’s ok. Just keep doing this until the dough comes together, about 5 times.

7. 7

   Pat the dough into a rough square.

8. 8

   Wrap the dough in plastic, and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

9. 9

   Once the 30 minutes have passed, remove the dough from the fridge.

10. 10

    Place the dough on top of a piece of parchment or wax paper. Using a rolling pin coated in flour, roll the dough into a rectangle where the bottom measures 10”. If needed, use floured hands to press down on the dough gently, but don’t add too much flour to the dough.

11. 11

    Fold the dough into thirds, similar to folding a letter. Start by taking the bottom third of the dough and folding it up toward the center. Then, take the top third and fold it down over the first fold, so the dough is neatly layered in three parts.

12. 12

    Rotate the dough 90 degrees, then flour the rolling pin, and roll the dough again until the larger side is 10”.

13. 13

    Do the letter fold again, folding the bottom third of the dough toward the center, and then folding the upper third over the middle.

14. 14

    Turn the dough 90 degrees, roll it out, and repeat the fold. Do this for a total of 6 times.

15. 15

    If the dough is sticking to the parchment too much, change the parchment to a new one, or add very little flour to prevent sticking. Try to add as little flour as possible.

16. 16

    After the final fold, press down on the dough to pack it gently, and wrap it in the parchment paper. Then wrap the little dough package into plastic.

17. 17

    Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

    120 min
18. 18

    Then you can proceed to use the dough as you would use in any recipes requiring puff pastry.

19. 19

    This recipe makes about 1 lb. of puff pastry dough.

Storage

1. 20

   The dough can be kept for up to 3 days in the fridge. You can also place it in a ziplock bag and keep it in the freezer for up to 2 months.